With 129,000 new private sector jobs created, March saw the sixty-first month of consecutive private sector job growth. Our economy has been making strides, but there is much more Congress can do to remove uncertainty for businesses seeking to invest here and create the kind of jobs that ensure America’s workers share in the benefits of recovery through higher wages and access to opportunities.

Whether we are for or against, the Congress is working today as the American people would have the Congress work. Speaker Boehner, Leader Pelosi, our extraordinary staffs on both sides of the aisle, and Members have come together and dealt with some difficult issues.

This resolution is bipartisan and reflects the will of Congress that the nation of Ukraine deserves every opportunity to chart a future based on democracy, territorial integrity, and freedom from Russian aggression.

Mr. Speaker, I was proud to join many Members of this House in Birmingham, Selma, and Montgomery, Alabama, from March 6th to 8th to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday,’ which led inexorably to the signing of the Voting Rights Act in August of that same year in 1965.

This bill is complex and could be discussed for a long period of time. [Education and Workforce Ranking Member] Scott doesn't have a long period of time, and I will be brief, but I want to point out that when we passed, at the request of President Bush, No Child Left Behind, which everybody has recognized does not have some of the components that it ought to have and has some components that it ought not to have, and Mr. Scott's substitute fixes that which is broken, but I'll point out that that bill passed 384-45.

I join her in thanking Mr. [John] Carter and Mr. [Hal] Rogers for bringing to the Floor in December a Homeland Security bill that was appropriate, that funded at the levels that were agreed upon by both parties.

Mr. Speaker, what we ought to have the courage to do is to tell all our Homeland Security personnel: ‘We're going to fund you through the end of this year’ – as we have told every other employee in the federal government that is protecting us and serving us on a day-to-day basis.

Mr. Speaker, this House is about to hold its fifty-sixth vote to undermine or repeal the Affordable Care Act – which came to us, by the way, by route of the Heritage Foundation, as I think probably most of you recall.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to respond to many of the representations that Mr. [Chairman Pete] Sessions made with reference to our economy, but we can all agree that our most important responsibility as Members of the Congress is to grow this economy, create the kinds of jobs that Americans need so that they can succeed and support themselves and their families.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker and Members, ever since the Conference Report was reported out, Leader Pelosi and I have told everyone how objectionable the two provisions that have been described to us are on our side of the aisle.